


the day I fell in love with a dying man

by OrphanCricket



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, SHEITH - Freeform, Sick Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 14:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17920622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrphanCricket/pseuds/OrphanCricket
Summary: Keith, who is sick of life meets Shiro, who is also sick but treasures every minute





	the day I fell in love with a dying man

There were many times when Shiro had turned Keith’s life around completely. The first time was when met. Shiro with his nose in a book, Keith with bleeding forearms and a stomach lining corroded by a handful of pills.  
All the beds on the psych ward were occupied and Shiro had agreed to keep on eye on his new roommate until he was transferred.

For the first three hours Keith refused to even acknowledge the other’s presence even though Shiro did his best to start a conversation. Only his curiosity forced him to talk in the end. Keith wanted to know why he was here. Shiro seemed healthy enough. He was tall, muscular with a tuft of thick dark hair atop a handsome face. Maybe he was ‘emotionally scarred’ too. That’s what Keith’s caretakers at the orphanage always whispered behind their hands when he had one of his ‘fits’. His latest one had gotten him grounded for a week but then one day they had forgotten to lock the door to the bathroom and here he was. Shiro listened to him without a change in his expression and when that usually was something that irked Keith to no end with Shiro it seemed genuine. For once he did not feel judged or embarrassed.  
It took him another two hours to finally ask about Shiro. He learned that his nervous system was slowly degenerating, starting with the fingertips in his right hand but it would soon affect his limbs, his spine and his brain. There was no cure. He still had a couple of years before the disease would impair him, Shiro told him, but for now he only had to check into the clinic every six months for routine tests and blood work. How many more years he had left in general he did not know. Nobody did.  
Keith lay awake that night. If someone as open and friendly as Shiro was cursed with an illness which drastically shortened his life seemed so optimistic, why was he, Keith, so desperate to make his own life even more miserable? Every day was precious.  
He was transferred the next day and Shiro was discharged. When they parted Shiro offered his hand and told him he hoped they would never see each other like this again. Keith smiled.

Two years later keith broke his leg when he crashed with a ‘borrowed’ motorbike. He had had no hopes about meeting Shiro again but when he was allowed to walk with his cast, his first trip led him to his former room. There was someone else in there for an entire week but on the last day he was in luck. He didn’t know what to say when he met him, wasn’t even sure the other would recognize him but Shiro’s face broke out in the biggest smile when he saw him standing awkwardly by the door. He had smiles and hugs for everyone, probably knowing the hospital staff since birth and Keith was once again mesmerized by the sheer warmth radiating off of him like sunshine. Shiro asked about his leg, raising an eyebrow in question and amusement and Keith countered by a pointing to the cast on his right arm. Shiro raise his wrist, his fingers dangling uselessy. This time he used his left hand to wish Keith goodbye when he left.

Another year later and Keith could finally keep his promise of meeting under different circumstances. He had counted six months after his hospital stay then chickened out and waited another half a year before gathering his courage and waiting in front of the clinic every morning before school. He was almost ready to give up after two weeks when he bumped into Shiro by accident on his way back. His right arm was gone but the smile was the same. Keith shoved a piece of paper with his number at him and ran the rest of the way.

Shiro was quick to text him. Despite Keith’s fears. And he wasn’t always as happy and carefree as he seemed. Keith learned his disease had progressed faster over the last months and doctors were forced to amputate. Shiro’s boyfriend had not been coping well with all this and they had broken up. His family was grieving already and Shiro was putting up a facade to not make it even harder on them. Only in his long texts late at night he let himself show how lonely and full of despair he was feeling sometimes. Keith had hoped to find a friend in Shiro but it turned out Shiro needed one just as much.

Their first real meeting in person and outside of the vicinity of a hospital was only weird in the beginning. They soon fell into an easy conversation, much like their texts and Keith was amazed how easy it was to talk to Shiro. He had never been a talkative person but with him words came easily and Shiro seemed to treasure every single one of them.

The met up regularly after that. To watch a movie, to hang at the mall, or just to play games and laze around in Shiro’s apartement. He had moved out soon after he had lost his arm because he couldn’t bare the faces of his parents any longer when they looked at him. It was small but filled with light and sometimes it felt like Keith had moved there to, with how often he came over.  
And in the end he did. It was further away from the campus than his dorm room but Keith didn’t mind the commute when it meant he could come home in the evening.  
Shiro had often said that he never wanted a relationship anymore and the pain that came with it but Keith was patient and eventually Shiro gave in. It wasn’t a huge step and almost no change in their routine when it happened. Shiro had gone on vacation to visit distant family and when Keith had come back from a stressful day he was waiting for him with a home-cooked five course meal, a candle on the dinner table, corny music and a promise to live his life to the fullest and make Keith’s time with him the best it could be. And Keith told him it already was.

From then on they never left each other’s side. Keith took time off to accompany him to the hospital for his check-ups or whenever it was necessary. He would have stayed the night too if he had been allowed. But he was there to welcome him back home afterwards.  
He helped sort his medication, reminded him to do his stretches, carried the shopping backs when they got to heavy and put the cereal box on a lower shelf. After a while he would close the buttons of his his shirt for him, put on his socks and push his wheelchair when his arm got tired.

One night a bad cough ripped them both from sleep and Keith rode in the ambulance with Shiro, holding his hand. Shiro smiled at him but his fingers had long stopped squeezing back. He stayed in the familiar room for the next five weeks, IV-drips counting the seconds. Keith stayed with him as much as he could which wasn’t enough. He only went home to sleep after a nurse had almost forcefully thrown him out and told him to get some proper rest. It went on like this until finally there was a date for Shiro’s discharge. Keith wanted to plan a welcome-home-party but then thought of something better. He invited Shiro’s parents and his friends, even some of his own, bought flowers and a ring. And a candle for the dinner table like Shiro had done so many years ago.  
Keith was not the type for public proposals but for Shiro he had already made so many exceptions.  
On the day of his return, Keith went to pick him up from the hospital. He fixed a flower to his wheelchair as a hint. But the door to his room was closed. A doctor told him Shiro had worsened over the night, he could no longer breathe on his own and they had to intubate. He was awake now but on ventilation. Keith only registered half of all this. All that mattered was that he was alive. But he would not be coming home with him today. He would have to reschedule the party.

Keith entered the room and it was like stepping into a space ship. It was full of strange machinery, beeping and sucking noises, cables and tubes leading to what was left of Shiro under a thin blanket. Thick bandages wrapped his throat, a tube sticking out of it, moving with him when he turned his head. He smiled and it was as warm as always.

Keith freed his arm from the stiff fabric of the sterile covers and clasped his hand between his. It was cool to the touch. He licked his lips, wanting to say the right thing, or at least something. But words wouldn’t come. Then he thought of something.  
He dug the ring from his pocket, glad he had taken it with him and gently put it onto the other’s finger. Then he held it up so Shiro could see. His eyes went wide and his mouth moved with silent words. Keith leaned over, told him not try to talk and placed a careful kiss on his mouth. Then he pressed his cheek against Shiro’s, feeling his lips move against his skin. There was no need to hear the words to know the answer.

Keith didn’t let go of his hand until the end. It hadn’t taken very long after all. The sun had set and taken all the warmth with it. He was asked if he wanted to keep the ring but he decided to leave it with Shiro. It was where it belonged after all. He knew that he would have gotten one too eventually. If everything had turned out a little different. If life had just been a little kinder to them.  
But Keith regretted nothing. Shiro had taught him to live everyday. To savour life and love and little happy things. Because one day they would end for him too and when that happened he would be looking back with pride and embrace that finity is, after all, what makes life worthwhile.


End file.
